A new feature that might be useful is next incremental bid immediately above your max bid price. This is useful because you might not really know that your initial max bid price is just not good enough only because it's just a few cent below ebay's next incremental bid price and therefore get rejected as "bid under asking price" error

You are unlikely to gain much support for this feature. The whole point of eBay's proxy bidding system (which shares many of the qualities of a sealed-bid second-price system) is to encourage you to bid ONCE at the maximum amount you would be willing to pay.

If you were willing to bid an increment more than the bid you entered, then you should have entered a bid that was an increment higher. Remember, the whole point of sniping is to prevent others from responding to your bid. The fact that there is not time for you (or for Gixen, on your behalf) to respond after your bid is made is a natural consequence of the sniping strategy._________________John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

well, i am talking really about the fact that you are willing to pay more but didn't know that your bid just miss the next increment.

Ex: the last winning bid is 158.00. The increment is 2.50. I have my snipe set at 160. I still lose at the end because my bid was rejected. I don't really have a way to know initially that i should have at least set 160.50.

But then i guess i should have set it to like 165.00 or something like that....

I still remember with chagrin an item I lost to a savvy proxy bidder. The item was at the opening bid of $24.00 and the bidding history was showing that my adversary had entered two bids. I scheduled a snipe of $151.15 and was sure I was going to win. BUT NO! My adversary's proxy bid turned out to be $151.20. I lost for a measly five cents!!!

I learned a hard lesson on that day: the item goes to the highest bidder, no matter when they bid. Had Gixen bid another increment for me, I would have won, but that's not the point. The point is that I didn't bid high enough. If Mario were to implement an "another increment" feature (were that physically possible, which it really isn't), then it would just result in losses one bid increment higher. What would be the solution to that problem? The "bid another two increments" feature?

In the end, one can only win an auction by bidding more than anyone else. The fact that sometimes one loses for what seems like a small amount is a red herring._________________John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

I understand the reason for asking for this.. and I can see that in theory it should be possible since when you were bidding manually eBay tells you what the next bid increment is... gixen should be able to read that and react in pretty much real time.

HOWEVER... I agree with juangrande I don't think it's a feature that would actually acheive positive results, just push prices higher and I'm never in favour of that!

... and it would take away the advantage we gain by knowing the EXACT price that our rival is willing to pay (because they always buy these items and you always bid against them)... thats actually some of the best fun we have amongst us snipers varying our bid amount by mere pennys on different auctions to gain a win or cause our rival to pick up something at more than they would ideally have liked to pay... it's all clean fun no one pays more than they are WILLING to pay.

... at the end of the day whatever your strategy, some you win some you lose... the trick is to make sure you win more often than you lose, and at a fair price on all ocasions._________________Mark

If you want this feature, why don't you just put the maximum you want?
If you put $158.50 and bid ends at $160, then $158.50 is the max you really wanted, not $160.

If we care about increments then the best rule is to put a little bit higher than what you really want to pay. For example, if I need some item at $150 then I usually snipe it for $152.50 or something like that. $2.50 most of time won't make any difference, but it will cover increment. If bid will go for $155 then I don't want it, because it's higher than what I want to pay.

Even if this feature will be implemented then most possible it won't have a time to bid again anyway..

Ex: the last winning bid is 158.00. The increment is 2.50. I have my snipe set at 160. I still lose at the end because my bid was rejected. I don't really have a way to know initially that i should have at least set 160.50.

Perhaps it's worth pointing out that the "winning bid" is only occasionally an actual bid. In other words, the high bidder may have actually bid much more than the "winning bid". Thus, even though it would be possible in wildpig's example to re-program Gixen so it would adjust the bid from $160.00 to $160.50, this would win only if the high bidder's actual bid is less than a bid increment greater than the current "winning bid" of $158.00. My experience has been that the winner usually still has some "moxy in his proxy" and that it would be an exercise in futility to adjust one's bid if it only ends up being a bid increment higher than the current "winning bid".

In any case, the way to win an eBay auction is to bid more than any of the other bidders._________________John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

Thus, even though it would be possible in wildpig's example to re-program Gixen so it would adjust the bid from $160.00 to $160.50

But buyer maybe don't want to pay $160.50. I know one buyer (I hope he does not see this post...) who keep bidding $30-$40 on $200 item hoping to buy it for his bid some day. Adjusting bid behind your back is not a good idea. Different people has different reasons for theri "$160.00" bid. The only thing I would suggest to bid $160.01 or .02, but that's a little bit different story.

juangrande wrote:

In any case, the way to win an eBay auction is to bid more than any of the other bidders.

Exactly! But additionally you want to win it for your price you want to pay, not higher. That's the whole point of sniper -- do not involve into bidding wars, but the original suggestion is actually implementing that bidding war situation.

I don't think anybody was suggesting that Gixen automatically adjust the bid amount without the user's consent: I think the suggestion was that there be an option the user could choose if they wanted this feature, and that the amount in question would only be a fraction of a bid increment and no more.

It appears we agree that we would not find such an option useful._________________John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

Prior to the advent of "eBay Countdown", there was really no justification for setting the snipe offset to less than 6 seconds. After all, the HIGHEST bid always wins, no matter when it is placed and it is impossible for a mere human being to react to a bid placed within the last 5 seconds.

However, eBay Countdown apparently provides "instant updates" to the current bid and (at least at one point in its development) would automatically update the minimum bid in the bid window every 3 seconds. If that's still true (and I'm not sure that it is, since I don't use eBay Countdown), then there is a reason to shorten the offset. There were complaints on the Bidding discussion forum about the bid amount being automatically updated, so I'm not sure that eBay Countdown still does that.

In any case, it will be interesting to see if eBay Countdown becomes widely used and if its use will affect auction outcomes in a significant way. If anyone reading this hasn't already seen eBay Countdown and is interested in checking it out, simply follow the "Sneak Peek" link at the top of most eBay pages._________________John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra